:: August 27, 2002
Thomas Pynchon paper dolls. Via many. ::
:: August 26, 2002
Charles Nelson Reilly Alert! He's one of the Old Troupers That Late-Night TV Has No Use for Anymore, laments the Wall Street Journal. (Thanks, Merlin.) He's also The Queen of the Match Game! Naw, it's really Betty White, but, duh. Don't miss the video link to the right -- Jane Clayson asks CNR and Brett Somers if the celebrity panel was drunk all the time, and Gene Rayburn's long skinny microphone is brandished! I can safely declare that, in terms of the recent spate of old TV show reunions (that has mercifully died down lately), this one is almost not butt-cringingly embarrasing ... and Ms. Clayson is the only one to blame for tipping the scales. ::
Via Cardhouse: the Great State Puzzle. Will there be a straightforward yet obscure answer? Or is this one of those trick questions with a Zen answer? A hoax? A stunt? Who cares because it's from Microsoft so turn around and run and don't look back? Apparently it's been around unsolved for 20 months, and nobody on Google Answers has come up with a solution since it was first posted a few weeks ago. No headway at the Straight Dope Message Boards or Metafilter, either.
The following is the ordered list of states so far, the task is to complete the order with the remaining "48 or 50 states" (whatever that means).
1. Delaware
2. Connecticut
3. Massachusetts
4. Rhode Island
5. New Jersey
6. Illinois
7. Wisconsin
8. Texas
9. Arkansas
10. Louisiana
11. Indiana
12. Ohio
13. Iowa
14. Arizona
15. Alabama
16. Mississippi
17. Florida
18. Minnesota
19. West Virginia
20. Maryland
Other clues:
· It is not a ranking, rather it reflects the order in which something happened
· The answer is on the Internet somewhere
· The answer was "in a publication with many colorful pictures" (pitchers? No word as to whether these clues were spoken or written)
Not enough frustration in your life? Take a crack at it. The prize pool is supposedly up to $2,000, but you're not going to see any of that if you come up with the solution unless you're a Google Answers researcher or work in the Microsoft department that's holding the contest. ::
:: August 25, 2002
The Great Epinions Constipation and Diarrhea Products Write-Off (via April Winchell) ::
New in PopCult: The Decline of Western Magazine Design aka Single-image covers killed the illustration star. Depressing. ::
:: August 22, 2002
Like my surnamesake Thornton Mellon, I am going back to school. That's right, friends, seven sweet months of ass-spread from watching JM J. Bullock on the Oxygen channel (interrupted only by my bimonthly roll to the mailbox for the unemployment check) is coming to an end in a short five days. Actually, the dole dried up last week, which is why I'm writing to you today.
Now, I'm not the type to axe for donations, but I am the type to sell you some CDs. By buying something at the Excitement Machine's Craptacular CD Blowout, know that you're keeping us in cable television for another month and contribuiting to the feng shui of our closetless shack, in which my return to graduate studies will force us to remain for untold years.
Just some of the musical treats that can be had at the Excitement Machine's Craptacular CD Blowout:
· Promotional CDs rejected by music editor Raoul Hernandez of the Austin "Kill Me Now" Chronicle, bound up with the futile hopes and dreams of aspiring musicians everywhere
· Pretentious indie rock that got me lots of cred with ironic T-shirt wearing men
· Surplus items from the merging of Excitement Machine households
· Stuff "borrowed" from "friends"
· Grateful Dead, because they're so totally the demographic of this website
· No Oingo Boingo, sorry
I suppose I'll put up a more permanent link to this. That way you can judge the quality of the offerings over time as a function of our financial health, and just laugh and laugh. ::
:: August 20, 2002
Marcel Dzama pumps out the art. $700 a pump. Not bad, not bad. I'll take two. ::
More animals in people clothes news: Thanks to the hard work of volunteers, the Phillip Island Nature Park now has more penguin sweaters than penguins who need sweaters. (Via Kelegraph) ::
:: August 14, 2002
Dans l'Onion: Wedding Enjoyed by No One but Bride ::
:: August 13, 2002
"Although his law can't be broken, a misdemeanor fine of up to one-tenth of a cent would be imposed on anyone or anything caught being unidentical to itself within city limits." (via Metafilter) ::
Ten Thousand Statistically Grammar-Average Fake Band Names (via BoingBoing) ::
:: August 8, 2002
God. I am 12 years old again and can smell the cheese grease imbued in the matted fur of Chuck E. and his animatronic Pizza Time Playing friends. There was zero zip nothing to do in the town in which I spent my formative years except for going to Chuck E. Cheese's. Our local franchise had weekly pre-teen dances, holiday lock-ins, you name it, and I was at every one. I danced my first slow dance with a boy there. I rang in many a New Year there -- you paid a flat fee at the door, and the arcade games were free all night. I have good memories about the skee-ball and the Dragon's Lair and the swiss cheese crawl and the Whack-a-Munch. I even got to put on the Mr. Munch costume once and greet visitors, the dream of every young girl.
This amazingly comprehensive-and-growing VegaNova's ShowBiz Pizza Place / Chuck E. Cheese's Website is bringing up a well of nostalgia but it's ... different ... and not altogether pleasant. Those are some seriously fucked-up puppets. Having a giant rat as your representive for your food service is, to put it mildly, flawed. Oh, maybe something traumatic happened to me there that I've blocked out ... in fact I have no memory of how the pizza tasted, so that tells you something right there. Really though, I think the Furries and Plushies have just ruined everything for the rest of us.
Anyway, spend some time on this site. (I never encountered a Showbiz Pizza, was that a regional variation or a competitor?) Audio files, video files, press photos, images of every collectible humanly possible ... ay yai yai. On the message board, there are heated discussions of hot-button issues, such as whether today's Cheese'ses should close on Sept. 11, and what drink you like best with your pizza.
(Via Scrubbles and Sharpeworld.) ::
More photos. Can you tell I got some software? The Excitement Machine Goes to the Star of Texas Fair & Rodeo, March 2002 ::
:: August 7, 2002
Here it is, the long-awaited photos from our post-layoff trip to Mexico in late February/early March of this year.
P.S. This one is now audio-visual. ::
:: August 5, 2002
Internalmemos.com has launched on schedule. It's $45 a month, which is way too steep for the average Joe or Kim. The one or two free memos posted each day is enough to make you completely depressed about human nature, though. ::
:: August 2, 2002
Today, I expanded my links page vertically, quantitatively, and qualitatively. I wish I could go further horizonally, but that would require math. ::
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